Sunny looked at Orphne and said through gritted teeth, "I think I've had enough of you enjoying the struggles of my love life. When are you going to tell me how to get rid of the damn [Shadow Bond]?!"
He had been more than a little blunt there which definitely wasn't a good idea when talking to someone who could easily kill him, but Orphne had long exhausted the last reserves of his patience.
Orphne sighed and then said the last thing that he wanted to hear.
"Not yet at least."
'Deep breaths. I can't crash out on her in anger if I value my life.'
A couple of minutes passed as Sunny gave Orphne a heavy gaze filled with annoyance and barely restrained rage.
He just barely managed to get himself under control before asking.
"What do you mean not yet? Why won't you tell me now?"
Orphne didn't seem effected at all by Sunny's not so well concealed malice, as she just waited for his tantrum to end almost as if she was a patient mother treating him as some kind of emotional toddler. Which he basically was comparatively to her own age.
"Well, isn't it obvious? If I told you that now you would just run off and try to free yourself."
Out of patience Sunny began tapping his foot against the ground in irritation.
"You know me so well. Of course, I would immediately go and break the bond and what exactly is wrong with that?
Orphne was about to rebuke him but then she just smirked.
Sunny was going to ask her why she was making that expression until his Shadow Sense picked up on something.
Orphne stood up and approached the door taking the bow off the hook she had hung it on earlier. She turned towards Sunny while holding the door open her earlier smirk had not disappeared and he could see something dangerous in her eyes that told him he was in for a bad time.
"What are you waiting for? One of the answers to your question has just shown up, don't you want to meet them?
Sunny reluctantly stood up and followed her outside where he encountered a sight that sent shivers down his spine. He was sure that he would never forget what he saw today no matter what other ridiculous creatures he had the misfortune of encountering.
He had thought that he felt at home in the dark and thus would share a kinship with beings made up of shadows and darkness.
Yet today when he encountered a being of true darkness, he felt the exact opposite of kinship. The beast reminded him of the Black Knight that he had encountered on the Forgotten Shore. Those weren't good memories so he would like nothing more than to tear the beast limb from limb for awakening them.
Soon enough, a dreadful beast was standing on the obsidian dune, hundreds of meters tall, its four mighty paws digging into the black dust with sharp claws. Its maw was like that of a wolf, and billowing tendrils of darkness fluttered in the air behind it like a tattered mantle.
Sunny shifted his gaze to look into the very essence of the dark drifter…
He saw something that he had not expected to see.
He saw nothing.
There was no light shining from the radiant soul cores. There was no vile corruption spreading from appalling nodes, either.
Instead, there was only darkness.
Not the vile darkness he had seen in the souls of countless Nightmare Creatures, but the cold and impenetrable darkness that made it impossible for him to see anything within the monstrous beast.
Just a second ago the beast was several hundred paces away from Sunny which was why he had assumed it was safe to shift his gaze and peer into its soul. His moment of distraction caused him to get blindsided when the beast was upon him far faster than he could react and raise his guard.
He was only saved from the vicious strike of the wolf-like beast's gigantic paw as Orphne yanked him backwards by the dark mane on the back of his head.
Sunny ended up sprawled on the coarse sand of the Shadow Realm and was about to rebuke Orphne for grabbing his hair so roughly but thought better of it since this wasn't an opponent he could face while wasting his breath on pointless banter that would inevitably end up being ignored.
He swiftly tried to get back on his feet, but his attempts were utterly invalidated by the shockwaves as the huntress and the beast engaged in an intense exchange of blows.
His thought of joining in on the melee was quickly obliterated as he recognized this was a battle that was beyond his level and any attempts to help Orphne would only end up with him getting in her way and becoming a hindrance to the huntress.
As if the past few days hadn't been enough of a humbling experience Sunny began to realize just how weak and out of place he was within the Shadow Realm which supposedly should have felt like home for a divine shadow like himself.
He had thought he was ready to immediately scour the realm of the dead in search for his freedom but Orphne's refusal to let him do so was beginning to make all too much sense.
Sunny watched in awe as Orphne ducked and weaved through all the attacks launched by the creature of darkness. She always seemed to be in the exact place needed to take maximum advantage of any openings and strike when the moment was right.
He almost felt as if she was putting his own Shadow Dance's ability to read movements to shame, as he could tell based on how she dodged her skill borderlines on precognition.
The creature of darkness seemed to posses enough intelligence to realize that at this rate it would never hit the huntress, so it started to go for more sweeping attacks that covered a huge area around it and slams the shook the ground in hopes of making the huntress lose her footing and caused the surrounding sand to fly into the air making itself harder to see.
The huntress wasn't about to let what should have been a mindless beast adapt to the fight faster than her.
Her form became hazy and started to shift. Orphne's mouth elongated, taking shape into a massive snout and maw with bared fangs and flaring nostrils. She abandoned her bipedal stance and grew an extra pair of legs with sharp claws each the length of a long dagger. On her back a pair of jagged wings grew that looked like a weapon in their own right. After the rest of her form had taken shape, a long-spiked tail grew from between her rear legs and when the rough structure was finished red scales manifested over its entire body completing her metamorphosis.
Orphne's transformation happened so fast that if Sunny had blinked, he was sure he would have missed it. By the end she had taken the form of a red drake that was similar in size to a Spire Messenger.
Just looking at the drake Sunny was sure that there was no way a creature that heavy could fly but as if hearing his thoughts Orphne began a short gallop towards the creature of darkness before leaping into the air and taking flight with a speed that Sunny could barely keep track of with his eyes and that was while she was only just starting to accelerate.
Sunny wasn't able to witness the rest of the battle very well since both combatants were now concealed by a heavy veil of sand.
All he was able to perceive was the sounds alone which were horrifying in their own right.
The wolf like abomination let out frightening howls and pained yelps almost constantly, as if the attacks from Orphne were never ceasing and she was ripping it to shreds.
Not long after it let out one last howl before collapsing to the ground causing one last massive dust cloud to be born.
Orphne landed beside Sunny and transformed back into a human, but he wasn't paying enough attention to notice the shift as he was still staring at the battlegrounds.
Once he finally managed to regain some of his composure he turned towards the huntress and began to view her in a new light.
He had known she was strong, but he hadn't thought it went to this extent. He took a look at her up and down and it appeared that after a fight against such a strong opponent Orphne didn't even have a scratch on her.
What was even more impressive was that she didn't even look dirty. He would have assumed that she would be covered in sand and blood, if that creature even did bleed, but the huntress was almost spotless. It didn't even look like she broke a sweat.
It seemed that in her transformed state she wouldn't damage or dirty her clothes because as skilled as she was there was simply no way she would be this spotless after flying through what was basically a sandstorm.
As he began replaying the battle over in his head mentally, Sunny suddenly wanted to fight Orphne, the thought of doing so made him giddy.
'Have I hit the jackpot?'
Sunny didn't need his intuition to tell him that she would be the best possible person he knew for him to spar with. He could practically see the breakthroughs in Shadow Dance coming.
He recalled how many opponents and battle styles he had to learn to make breakthroughs before and realized fighting someone like Orphne was basically a cheat code. He wouldn't have to go out of his way to fight new people and monsters to delve deeper into his aspect legacy when he knew someone who might have mastered even more battle styles than himself.
A sinister smile had made its way onto Sunny's face unbeknownst to him.
Orphne took one look at his smile and turned away shuddering.
"That smile, kindly never show it to me again it brings back painful memories."
Sunny gave her an odd glance but thought better of asking a question he was sure would be left unanswered, he turned back to the battlefield as he could finally get a proper view of it now that the sand was starting to settle.
Looking at the deceased creature of darkness Sunny almost began to pity it. Its form was mangled beyond belief. There was no one decisive blow that had ended the creature's life instead the huntress had given it a death by a thousand tiny cuts. It didn't seem to bleed exactly or rather than blood coming out of its wounds viscous liquid darkness poured out of them, it even looked like it had become smaller than when Sunny had first seen it because of how much of its darkness it had lost.
He did his best to shake of his disbelief and turned back to look at Orphne.
Sunny initially thought that the ability to transform into a drake was Orphne's transcendent ability but now that he thought about it her transformation ability was a little odd and wasn't like any others he had seen.
Although it was subtle she was a little slow at transforming compared to all the saints he knew. Almost all other abilities were near instant, but her transformation was gradual, gradually fast but still the speed couldn't compare to most others.
It was almost like she had to visualize and shape the form she took when she activated it which caused a slight lag in the transformation.
This caused Sunny to believe that her transformation was much more versatile than most others and she could take whatever form she pleases.
Something else that made him believe this was that the drake was too convenient of a matchup against her opponent. It couldn't be a coincidence that she just so happened to have the perfect transformation ability for that specific battle.
Sunny had already thought she would be an ideal partner to refine his Shadow Dance with just based on her performance against the creature of darkness before she transformed. She was just getting better and better. Who knew how many battle styles she had in her repertoire, the styles of both human and nightmare creatures alike.
Sunny nodded his head as he came to a decision and gave Orphne an electric smile.
"Will you be my partner?"